Stardust

I shall be dumped where the weed decays
And the rest is rust and stardust.

—Lolita, Vladmir Nabokov

     The passions of youthful romance were an utter mystery to Cass, and this was no less true in regard to July’s relationships than it was in regard to herself. Flirtation was beyond her capabilities, of course, but even beyond that, the sheer apocalyptic fervor with which young lovers conducted themselves left Cass feeling nothing more than cold and uncomfortable.

     And cold and uncomfortable she was, sitting in the living room while her friend’s soap opera unfolded audibly in the adjacent room. To his eternal credit, Captain Testa—or perhaps Teiddan, in this context, much as it grated on Cass to discard professionalism—kept up a loud dialogue with his cousin as the scene played out, telling some self-effacing tale of his childhood while Olive chimed in with chipper remarks, but it was not enough to conceal the shouts and smashes emanating from the kitchen.

     When July finally returned, she was panting like an animal, sporting a wild, violent glint in her eyes and a smear of crimson across her forehead. Cass looked away, feeling as though she’d intruded on something painfully intimate.

     Fortunately, she did not have to reflect on this for long. Olive cut Teiddan’s story short with an announcement that she would be turning the television on.

     Cass, for all her woes, still maintained enough of a presence of mind to give Micah’s hand a reassuring squeeze as the television flickered on. He had, over the last couple of hours, made it clear he was awfully apprehensive, and she did not exactly know what to do with this, but felt she ought to make some effort at “being there.”

     The screen glowed a pale blue, empty save for the United States coat of arms emblazoned brashly in the middle. Along the bottom, a countdown to the press conference ticked down, just under four minutes left on the timer.

     “I haven’t had a reason to turn one of these damn things on in years,” Aston said loudly, which was perhaps the first time she’d related to him in their brief catalog of interactions.

     “Yeah, I don’t watch this crap,” Lake said, seemingly at total ease in his strange surroundings. He had a pink novelty mug clutched between his hands, which comically dwarfed the chalice. It gave him the air of an awkward father holding a child’s teacup between two fingers; the fact that he was crouched on the floor, knees somewhere around his shoulders, only added to the impression. “I miss Supernatural,” he added, which caused Micah to guffaw loudly, for no reason she could ascertain.

     “I watch religiously,” Olive said, settling back into her spot beside Teiddan. She patted her lap and the poor excuse for a dog, which had been whuffling pathetically at the bottom of the couch, ceased its snuffling to hop into her lap. “I need to, for my job.”

     “She’s a lawyer,” Teiddan said to the room at large. “But Livvy,” and here he directed his attention entirely on his cousin, frowning slightly, “surely there are better places to get your news from?”

     “Of course I read the papers, dummy,” Olive said, in a tone that practically oozed affection, “but I like to get my propaganda straight from the horse’s mouth.”

     “You can analyze it yourself that way,” Aston chimed in, which prompted Olive to pause her affectionate coddling of her dog and offer a thumbs-up in his direction. He preened visibly, perhaps a tad overly proud for such a lukewarm gesture of approval, but then Sage shushed him loudly and gestured to the screen. The countdown now showed mere seconds left.

     Cass squeezed Micah’s hand so hard she felt her bones creak. Her chest was airy and light, but not in a particularly pleasant way, more as though it was liable to crack open and reveal the churn of her guts at any moment.

     Onscreen, the channel smoothly turned to a feed of President Taner at a podium, coat of arms projected on a large screen behind him. Cass gazed at him with great interest—she hadn’t seen this man in several years, having only kept up with the news underground via conversation and occasional newspaper articles clipped and delivered to her by Teiddan, and her memories of the president's appearance were vague at best.

     He was unassuming in almost every way, a middle-aged man of average height and build, with skin toward the darker end of plausible whiteness and a face peppered with laugh lines and creases around the eyes. His hair was dark and cut short and professional (if it were longer, it may have had a bit of a wave, although less obvious than Cass's own loose curls), his nose had a roundish snub to it, and his chin was thin and sharp; his most notable feature was his ears, which stuck out prominently, making him look a tad unbalanced. His posture, however, was ramrod-straight and there was a keen, confident glint in his eyes; their glassy greenish-brown sheen reminded Cass of something burning, a nuclear reactor churning away at the bottom of a shadowy abyss.

     “Good morning.”

     As President Taner spoke, a line of captions began scrolling under his visage. He punctuated his statements with significant pauses, controlled and careful gestures when his voice bordered on emotional, and charismatic, smoldering eye contact with the camera.

     “This week, America was left reeling as we struggled with extremist violence in our very own borders—in New York City, a beacon of American values, culture, and industry. A beacon that has been the target of anti-American extremism and violence for decades.” A pause, quite short, but significant nonetheless; Cass had to give Taner quite a lot of rhetorical credit, as the beat of silence did, in fact, lead her to consider the history of terrorism in New York.

     Taner cleared his throat, a grave expression passing over his face. “A cell of violent extremists has operated for years in our country, aiming to dismantle the American way of life and attack our values at their core. They have been linked with terrorist cells across the nation, received funding from enemy organizations overseas, and left a path of death and destruction wherever they’ve been. They have destroyed vital infrastructure, committed heinous anti-reptilian crimes, and spread hatred and fear throughout our nation.”

     Another pause. Then: “I am proud to say that, due to the heroic actions of the brave men and women of our Armed Forces, the New York terrorist cell has been neutralized permanently.”

     Cass ignored the visceral sensation in her stomach that flared at those words. She was vaguely aware that someone was speaking quietly behind her—July and at least one other person—but she chose to tune it out, laser-focusing on Taner’s speech.

     “Neutralizing the threat could not be accomplished without some sacrifice. In order to flush the extremists out of hiding, we were forced to temporarily cut electricity and water to a small section of New York City. This extremist organization took advantage of our generous state’s ability to provide basic necessities to citizens free of charge; they were leeching necessary resources from our citizens to fuel their dangerous, violent agenda.

As of this morning, all utility services have been returned to the brave citizens of New York City. I thank you for your sacrifice, and I pledge to dedicate my administration to ensuring it is never necessary again.”

     “We had our own generators,” July said, so loudly Cass could no longer ignore her outburst.

     “We received our water from the same system as the rest of the city,” Teiddan said. “Our generators would have been one of their first targets, and we had ways to swap to backup power from—oh, you wouldn’t know about the deal with the Fortuna warehouses, would you?”

     “The what,” July said.

     “It’s all boring business and politics. The point is, Quinton brokered contracts with various locations—“

     While July and Teiddan discussed trivialities, the camera swapped to a view of the press circuit, rows of journalists in conscientiously-chosen businesswear, all pressed blouses and wrinkle-free suit pants and gelled hair. One of them was speaking; Cass, with some irritation, gave in to her baser instincts and shushed the people around her insistently.

     “You say you’ve neutralized the terrorist cell in question—what specific actions have you taken? Have you made any arrests?”

     The camera swapped back to Taner, who was sporting the same charismatic smile as earlier while using his pocket square to dab behind one protrusive ear. “We have arrested several of the most high-profile terrorist ringleaders, and a handful more were neutralized in combat during altercations with our Armed Forces. We will not be releasing names. We do not want these individuals to become martyrs.”

     “Well, we definitely have to kill him,” July said over the sound of another reporter clamoring for Taner’s attention.

###

     It was crudely worded, and devoid of any larger understanding of the situation they found themselves in politically speaking, but July was not wrong.

     The next several hours were a frantic blur; there was little verbal communication, but everyone in the room seemed to understand the gravity of the situation and acted with the accordant level of responsibility.

     Someone immediately started a large pot of coffee in the cherry-red percolator by the stove, and then another one, and then several more after that—Cass, upon trying the beverage for the first time, found herself utterly infatuated with the bitter flavor and began sucking it down at record speed, her thoughts becoming unprecedentedly swift and clear while the jittery, airy feeling in her chest continued to build.

     Aston, Sage, Teiddan, and Olive entered a practical fugue state, gathering all sorts of materials from Olive’s office and having endless, tense conversations hovering over various papers, maps, and even Olive’s computer—useless these days for the Internet, of course, God rest its soul, but apparently packed with documents and various mathematical programs Cass could only guess at the functions of. Throughout the day, Olive’s dog continued to trot clumsily at her heels like a wheezing, fluffy shadow.

     At one point, Olive gathered all of them up—including Axel, who had to be retrieved from the backyard and stayed uncharacteristically silent and sullen—and escorted them into her bedroom, where she pulled a cleverly-hidden panel out from the ceiling, and a ladder down with it. The entrance nestled neatly into the wooden boards of the ceiling, blending in so perfectly with the slats between panels that Cass never would have spotted it on her own.

     “I bought this house because of this room,” Olive said, looking rather smug. “It’s colonial. Probably was used to hide escaped slaves or something, I never actually looked into the history myself, and the realtor sounded like he was talking out of his ass.”

     The small, cramped attic was, of course, small and cramped—Lake and Sage could not even stand up straight in it, and settled for squatting and lying flat on the floor, respectively—and covered in cobwebs and dust, to a degree that prompted Cass to strap her respirator over her face despite being indoors. It held no furniture, contained no windows and was lit only by a selection of camping lanterns, which Olive hissed and cursed at as she jiggled and prodded their various mechanisms, swatting dust off their bulbs and turning them on one-by-one. Their various maps and papers ended up spread out on the floor in a corner, held down with coffee mugs and paperweights from Olive’s office.

     It was not very comfortable, but it was where they spent the next several hours, while Teiddan and Aston frequently circulated up and down the ladder in a revolving door of caffeine, maps, markers, and hasty, confused explanations.

     July and Axel stayed on opposite ends of the attic the entire time. Once she had retrieved her fourth mug of coffee (a dangerous endeavor, given it involved climbing back up the ladder one-handed), Cass came to sit next to July, who immediately grabbed her and drew her into a violent, lung-crushing hug and began murmuring “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” in an endless, incoherent chant. Cass, not having the faintest idea of what to do, simply rubbed her back in gentle circles until she calmed down, upon which neither of them discussed what incited this display of emotion save for July obliquely muttering something about “the breakup.” This told Cass all she needed to know.

     Eventually, Aston and Teiddan returned in tandem, bearing a map of DC and a laser pointer, and began a briefing on navigating the city; they did not get more than a couple of sentences in before Lake interrupted them.

     “Why don’t y’all let me get you into the White House?” He was still squatting on the floor, pants covered in dust and hair sticking up at strange angles, and appeared, for all intents and purposes, to believe he was saying the most normal sentence in the world.

     Axel spoke, for the first time since he'd disappeared into the kitchen that morning; his voice was hoarse and filled with something that sounded very like violent intent. “How the hell would you do that?”

     “I have magic powers.” Lake’s voice did not change from its cool, easygoing manner, nor did his posture or face shift one iota.

     “Please don’t fuck around right now,” July said, cutting off Axel’s strangled, angry noise that could, potentially, have resolved into a much ruder scolding.

     “Oh, for fuck's sake.” Micah was slumped against the wall a few feet from the girls, his arms folded over his chest and his eyes narrowed to thin, mean slits. Cass felt thoroughly lost at sea, and took an over-large gulp of lukewarm coffee to compensate. “You people act like everything he says is a joke—“

     “It’s fine,” Lake said quickly. When Micah started his interjection, Lake began bouncing one of his feet one the floor in short, quick motions, and he did not stop.

     At the front of the room, Aston and Teiddan exchanged long, inscrutable looks. “Would you like to explain that statement?” Teiddan said, his face slightly pinched.

     “I told y’all last week, we were on that ship for years, and the stuff the Dusties did to us had… effects.” It appeared as though Lake was forcing every individual word out of his mouth with extreme effort. His leg-bouncing continued to mount in pace and vehemence. “Like—like how I don’t need to wear a mask when y’all do. Or—fuck it, it’s easier to show you. Watch me.”

     Cass was fairly sure she did not blink. She was also fairly sure that Lake did not move from his position. Still, one second, he was there, and the next second, he was squatting on the floor directly beside Aston, the flow of his anxious fidgeting entirely unbroken.

     Without her conscious mind having any say in the matter, Cass’s eyebrows shot up and she made an undignified noise of shock.

     “I’ve been calling it ‘blinking,’” Lake said, his cheeks flushed visibly even from across the room.

     Sage propped herself up on her elbows, gazing at the scene with open, unabashed fascination. Everyone else seemed altogether unsure of the appropriate response, save for Aston, who clapped his hands together several times, but whether he meant his applause to be sincere or sarcastic was not clear.

     “Sure! Why not,” he said, voice a tad louder than was socially appropriate. “Sage is psychic now, you can teleport—why not? It’s not like I should expect to understand anything anymore, should I?”

     “She’s psychic?” July said, perking up a bit.

     “No,” Sage said, “and that’s not relevant at the moment. Lake, was it?” When he nodded, she continued, rolling onto her side to face him as she spoke. “My first guess would be this is related to the dimensional folding tactic Dusties use to travel faster than light. I don’t entirely understand the process, but I think you’re temporarily dipping into a dimensional space where you can fold—actually,” and as she cut herself off, the breadth of her nose wrinkled up, her chin ducked into her chest sheepishly, and she laughed once, a soft, self-effacing sound. “Sorry, you probably don’t care about that right now. Do you have… limits?”

     “It hurts. The farther I go, the more it hurts. I have headaches all the time.” Lake frowned, now tapping his fingers on his knees in time with his leg-bouncing. “It was easier on the ship, but I think I just knew the ship better. It’s a crapshoot unless I can picture where I’m going in my head. And I can take other people, if they’re touching me.” One hand paused to jab a finger in the vague direction of where Cass and July were sitting. “I got us out of the Resistance base like that.”

     Beside him, Aston and Teiddan were participating in some sort of rushed and mumbled aside; as Lake’s explanation ended, Aston broke off and interjected himself into the conversation once more. “I think you should come downstairs with us. We need to re-strategize.”

###

     The strategy, as it evolved, was laughably simplistic. Micah, as an untrained civilian, would stay behind in the attic. Of the remaining group members, Cass managed to talk herself and July onto the strike team; they were assigned to Teiddan—no, Captain Testa—along with Lake, who would, of course, be their way in. Lake was a liability in many regards, having no combat training whatsoever, but he was issued a gun nonetheless, given he at the very least knew how to use it, and the orders to, if combat arose, stay under Cass and July’s cover at all times.

     Once they arrived (hopefully in a bathroom in the eastern wing of the building, near an exit to the grounds) Axel would escort Sage and Aston to the White House’s private spaceport. Upon their mission’s success—Sage and Aston retrieving a spaceship and exiting the planet—he would make his way back to the strike team, who, with the help of Olive’s carefully-labeled White House floor plans, would be working inward to the bedchambers of the President.

     From there, it was a matter of going in, neutralizing the target and any adjacent hostiles, and utilizing Lake’s unique abilities to “blink” directly back to the attic.

     If everything went smoothly, there would be very little chance Olive’s involvement was discovered, and their hiding place would be unnecessary. Something deep in Cass’s stomach turned every time she thought the words “if everything went smoothly.” Then again, she had drunk an obscene amount of coffee, and as a result she felt very fast and very nauseous and very strange overall.

     That queer, quick feeling persisted as Lake instructed them to link hands in a chain; she stood in the dusty attic, clasping July’s sweaty hand in one of hers and Lake’s cool palm in the other, and as she stared into the faces of her comrades under the dim, flickering light of the electric lanterns—she felt as though she might puke.

     “Good luck,” Micah said.

     “See you later,” Lake said, which struck Cass as an incredibly lame goodbye, but she had no time to reflect on this—she felt a nigh-immediate lurch in her stomach and a simultaneous flash of black across her vision; as soon as it came, it was gone, and Cass found herself swaying slightly in a dark room. Shadowed squares of tile spun as she hung her head, vision tunneled resolutely onto the floor immediately beneath her boots, swallowing back a bout of motion sickness.

     Lake’s hand dropped from hers straightaway; over their heads, large fluorescent lights flickered to life, revealing what appeared to be an entirely normal, albeit extraordinarily dilapidated public restroom. The floor was filthy, covered with a thick layer of dust and debris; there were stall doors hanging off their hinges and the lights stuttered and flickered continuously in a manner which set Cass’s nerves off. She conscientiously performed a quick seal-check on her mask.

     Beside her, Lake bent over double, a low, keening noise emanating from him.

     “Lake?” July’s voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

     He waved her off, still bent over, his hands on his knees. When he spoke, his voice was an obviously strained attempt at pep. “I’m fine. We should go.”

     “I don’t like this,” Axel said. Cass privately agreed; the bathroom’s state of disrepair was absurd for the operating seat of democracy in the United States. Still, there was nothing they could do but creep out the door and into the darkened corridor, holding their weapons at attention, July sticking to Lake’s side like a particularly concerned burr in his clothes.

     Outside the bathroom, everything was similarly run-down; no lights were on, and what little Cass could see by the flickering light from the bathroom doorway was not promising. The heavy wooden panels on the walls were stained and chipped, the white paint on the support columns peeling; the smooth tile floor was covered in the very same layer of filth as on the bathroom floor, and doors stood half-ajar all down the hall.

     Axel gave Captain Testa a series of hand signals Cass was not quite fast enough to catch the meaning of, then he broke off to make his way down the hallway, Sage and Aston in tow.

     The other four turned the opposite direction and set down the corridor. Cass’s heart pounded in her mouth and she kept her rifle in high port. The dust-filled hallways pulsed with a palpable feeling of dread; the air was thick and heavy on Cass’s skin, the darkness practically tangible.

     Minutes passed. Every tinny click of her boots against the tile floor transmogrified her guts, once more, into a writhing ball of squirming snakes; the muscles at the base of her neck pulled painfully taut.

     The maze of hallways stretched on. Cass's nerves wore down til they were raw; every rustle of her clothes, every distant echo of their boots tapping through the halls, sent a dull blade scraping underneath her skin. Finally, Captain Testa signaled Right and the group ducked through an archway to enter a long colonnade, lined by doors on one side and floor-to-ceiling windows along the other; the windows, even under the darkness of night, were visibly streaked with filth, while the triangular pattern of tile on the floor was barely visible under even more layers of crud.

     At the end of the colonnade stood the entrance to the executive residence: a sizable, yet unassuming closed door painted in chipped and peeling white.

     On her captain’s signal, Cass ducked to one side of the closed door, back pressed against the wall; July mirrored her on the opposite side, pulling Lake alongside her. His willingness to unquestioningly follow directives was quite admirable.

     As Captain Testa pressed his ear against the door, the clattering sound of footsteps echoed down the hall; July swung out from around their captain and sighted down the line of her rifle, but she did not shoot. Her brows furrowed and she lowered her weapon, reaching behind herself to tap Captain Testa.

     When Cas looked down the length of the colonnade, she saw Axel running toward them in a manner entirely inappropriate for a clandestine operation such as this; bemused, she signaled Quiet, but even as her fingers lifted into the air, he was already shouting.

     “Don’t! It’s a trap, it’s all—“

     Unfortunately, Captain Testa had already begun to swing the door open.

     A booming, resonant voice reverberated through the air and into Cass’s very bones, shaking her thoroughly: it said “COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP,” but it could have said anything and it would have been just as earth-shattering, just as bone-shaking, just as mindbogglingly impossible. Even as the first syllable rang out, Cass launched herself off the doorframe, instinct faster than thought; she sped back down the colonnade toward the east wing, mind clear of all thought save for the pure, icy clarity of Go.

     The scattershot cracks of gunfire began shortly. Cass threw herself the last few feet and rolled back through the east wing entrance, followed by Axel a bare few centimeters after her.

     Cass shot to her feet, hoisting her gun; Axel, at her side, grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her through a nearby door, then slammed it shut behind them and leaned against it, hands on his knees and his breathing ragged. Above, the ceiling lights flickered to life with a sickly buzz.

     “Put your mask on,” she barked, and to her eternal surprise, he obliged promptly and without complaint. Wondering how far she could push this, she said “Look at me. Your mission?”

     Axel did, in fact, look at her, with eyes wide and pupils so blown out in the dim light, she couldn’t make out a hint of green. “Spaceport was blocked. We got separated.”

     “Fuck!” Cas snarled. She could tell, even in the violent thick of anger, this was uncharacteristic; resisting the overpowering urge to go and start kicking furniture zealously, she took a few deep, long breaths in through her nose, tuning out the crackling gunfire just behind the door. Her heart fluttered, her thoughts chasing each other around in unproductive circles.

     It was not the time to theorize, but Cass could not help herself—this was because the state captured General Flynn, it had to have been. Who else at the base knew about this mission? Kahue may have known of the existence of the plan, perhaps, but certainly not details such as the wing they entered from; hell, Kahue wouldn’t even know they were planning to strike in the White House itself. For all she knew, they were planning to crash Taner’s private jet, or land a headshot on the man during a public appearance. The same went for Argent; Flynn played this type of card close to his chest, even among his peers.

     The state knew where the team’s objective was, that it was under the cover of night, perhaps even expected it to happen in the next few days, given Flynn already suspected their mission failed several days ago. Any longer, and it would have been safe to assume something waylaid the team permanently in transit. Perhaps he thought there was no possibility of follow-through, that the information would be useless as a result.

     Telling Axel any of that would not have been practical. Cass inhaled deeply through her nose one last time and mentally tabled the matter.

     “New objective,” she said decisively. “Find them and get out.”

     “Alright,” Axel said. It was perhaps the most in-tune they had ever been with one another, but Cass did not have time to ruminate on that at the moment.

     The derelict office they sheltered in boasted heavy wooden furniture, filing cabinets, and an overall truly ridiculously lavish aesthetic for what it was. “Make a barricade and I’ll cover you,” Cass said, and they got to work, pushing a filing cabinet over with a calamitous crash! and struggling to reposition it lengthwise in front of the door; with a grunt of exertion, Axel tipped over a bookshelf, spilling loose books all over the floor, and dragged the empty shelf over top of the fallen cabinet.

     Cass crouched by this makeshift barricade, careful not to slip on the avalanche of slippery covers and loose pages that now threatened her territory; with a grimace, she poked her head over the barrier, positioned her rifle with steady and careful hands along the shelf’s surface, and said “Go.”

     Axel flung the door open and ran as Cass laid down cover fire. There were a small handful of black-helmeted, uniformed figures in the hall; they weren’t tall enough to be Dusties, which Cass registered simultaneous to her finger squeezing the trigger on her first shot. It did not make her hesitate. She could not afford to let herself hesitate.

     Several hostiles dashed after Axel down the hall; two stayed behind, holding up shiny plastic riot shields as Cass frantically squeezed the trigger again and again, all extemporaneous factors falling away in favor of a violent form of tunnel vision, the edges of her field of view blacking out til all she could see, hear, smell, was the length between herself and the hostiles, the earsplitting cracks of gunfire and the miasma of smoky, singed gunpowder enveloping her wholly.

     Abruptly, one hostile fell, an inhuman, gurgling scream ripping from their throat.

     Cass was thrown. She thought she missed her shots.

     The hostile’s companion paused to grab them; this was a fatal mistake. Three more staccato, deafening cracks tore through the air and darkness bloomed on both the knees of the one still standing; they stumbled, falling atop their companion while whimpering.

     July came into Cass’s view. Of course.

     She looked wild as she ran toward Cass’s barricade; coated in a fine white powder, jacket entirely gone, holding her rifle in just her vest and undershirt, arms smeared with blood that continued over the stock and barrel, matching splatters of blood across the plastic of her respirator. Her eyes were wide and her breathing frenzied; once she was fully behind the barrier, she clutched at Cass’s jacket desperately with her free hand, staring unblinkingly into Cass’s face.

     “Tell me if there’s fire,” she said, nearly unintelligible in her mania. “Cass, I need to—you have to help, I don’t know if it’s real—“

     “There is no fire in this room,” Cass said quietly and evenly. She grasped July’s hand with her own, disentangling it from her jacket to intertwine their fingers firmly. “At ease, soldier.”

     July’s breathing slowed infinitesimally; still ragged, still stumbling, but ever-so-slightly slower.

     “We need to find the others.” Cass used every single scrap of willpower left in her soul to maintain her even, calm tone. Her friend’s gaze wandered from her face, toward the hallway now empty save for the groaning, wheezing body scrabbling at the floor; Cass squeezed her hand, sharp and rough, and July’s eyes instantly snapped back to meet hers. “Wright. Where did you last see the others?”

     “Down the hall.” July sounded small and distant. “In the east wing.”

     When the girls stood up, the body on the floor raised its gun; without pause, July cocked her rifle and fired off three more shots into their arms. The gun fell with a clatter and further moans of pain drew forth from the body. Cass looked away, her stomach churning.

     Upon exiting the office, Cass became aware the burnt scent filtering through her respirator was more than just gunfire, and indeed, the flickering half-light was not merely from malfunctioning lamps; down the corridor, dozens of yards away, flames licked lasciviously at the walls of the White House, leaving blackened streaks on the ivory paint and thick pine, bathing the halls in an uncanny trembling half-light, all the while creeping threateningly toward the girls. Cracks formed in the ceiling; if Cass squinted, she could make out worrisome shapes dangling from above in the very distance.

     “I stand corrected,” she said. “There is fire.”

     July whimpered like a kicked dog, shrinking back from the scene. Cass snapped her fingers three times around July’s ears; her friend stared at her, wild-eyed and tense, a wounded prey animal liable to snap and fall into frenzy at any second.

     “We have to go that way. Follow me. Do not stop, do not lose sight of me, do not get hurt. Understood?”

     She nodded.

     And they were off, Cass’s boots pounding the floor, near in time with her rapidly-escalating heartbeat. She flung herself forward through the flames and they lapped at her heels, roared in her ears, pitted themselves against her in a frantic race to the end of the hall; they grew in number and in fervor as she skidded and wheeled through the halls, accompanied by disturbing crumbling sounds, noises of groaning metal and popping wood, the sounds of concrete disintegrating and tumbling around her. She dodged and wove through debris, heat blistering her exposed skin, sweat pouring down her body and soaking her clothes.

     She did not know if July was still following her. She could only hope she was.

     “Here!” someone shouted; Cass could not stop, could not afford to stop, but she did anyway, wheeling around to catch sight of Captain Testa waving at her from a doorway only a few yards down the hall.

     All at once, a great crackling groan resonated through the air, so brutally all-encompassing it rattled Cass’s teeth; a scream pierced the air, stabbing urgently into Cass’s sinuses, and as she spun around, struggling under the sensory assault of flames and falling rubble, she saw July tumble to the ground a few yards behind her, beneath a rain of detritus.

     Chunks of ceiling crumbled between them—Cass threw herself toward her friend’s body, barely able to perceive her slumped form between the swirling smoke and haze of dust and the wreckage disintegrating all around her—smoke stung at her eyes, crept into her ducts, smeared her vision into a wet blur—before she could fall, hands grabbed her and pulled her back, dark and thin and bony.

     Captain Testa yanked Cass backward and wrapped his arms around her. She struggled against the corded muscle of his forearm, snarling and screeching until she choked, drool pooling in the humid compartment of her respirator—she clawed ferociously at the arms wrapped around her chest, but his jacket was thick and tough and her nails found no purchase, and her backwards kicks fell uselessly against his shins, and he dragged her through the doorway nonetheless.

     Images swam and blurred through the film of tears coating Cass's retinas—she angrily beat at her own face, dragged a sleeve over her eyes and squinted through the haze—Captain Testa's grip tightened. Figures moved in the corners of her perception, her captain's voice barked something sharp, but Cass only had eyes for the hallway, where July struggled weakly underneath the rubble—flames flickered around her, thick plumes of black smoke coiling in the air between them—and through it, through the miasma and the fallen chunks of building and all her frenzied thrashing, Cass saw July scrabbling at her chest with her free arm, yanking at something—her dog tags. July was trying to remove her dog tags.

     More hands grabbed at her. Cass was overwhelmed—her senses confused, her tear ducts clogged, unable to hear anything over the endless, crackling roar of the fire consuming the building. Captain Testa's voice finally cut through her hysteria, stern and raw and louder than she’d ever heard him: “Everyone shut up. They’ll be at the safehouse.”

     The world lurched. Cass’s head spun.

     Everything went black, and then it was still black, but she was on her hands and knees, palms pressed against old splintering wooden floorboards.

     She gagged. Swallowed back the sound almost as soon as it occurred, whole body wracked with shudders as she fought to keep silent. Ominous sounds filtered through the floorboards from downstairs—loud, angry voices, barks and yips from the dog, thumps and bangs, the sound of furniture dragging across the floor.

     Cass scrabbled at her face, jerked her respirator up and over her head without regard for her comfort. The rough edges on its plastic straps scraped over her cheeks; she tossed it to one side and retched as quietly as she could.

     The contents of her stomach came up all at once, in a horrific, burning flood. She knelt, heart racing, uncontrollable shivers consuming her body, repeatedly vomiting in waves that tasted of ethanol and ash; she turned inside-out, raw and trembling.

     The lantern switched on a few feet from her. Cass withdrew herself shamefully from the horrible brown puddle pooling on the floorboards, taking deep, shuddering breaths as she looked around.

     Aston was nearest to her, looking wan and ghostly in the lantern light, covered in a sheen of sickly sweat. Sage laid sidelong in his lap, clothes plastered against her skin in patches of shiny, wet blood. With a jolt of panic, Cass realized her eyes were closed—but no, her chest rose and fell in microscopic movements.

     A few feet away from her, just beyond arms' reach, Lake squatted on his heels, somehow cool and collected as he regarded her. She met his gaze, his face haunted in the stark relief of lantern light that cast angular shadows over it, harsh patterns of light and dark shifting and overlapping til she could barely tell what expression he was making; he murmured, sotto voce, “I’m going back for her.”

     It took her a moment to process what he said, the words gumming up the machinery of her mind for the barest instant. “What,” she hissed, throat raw, “no, no, Lake—”

     But the instant it took her to process was a beat too long—he was gone, gone before she could reach out and grab his jacket, force him to either abort his mission or take her with him. Cass’s guts revolted again. She fought back another retch with steely force of will and an agonized clench of her jaw.

     In the darkest corner of the attic, directly across from her, Axel sat and shook, staring at the vacant patch of air where Lake at been, at Cass herself, with a ghastly expression. His hands curled into fists in his lap, vibrating with some unexpressed passion she could only guess at. A ridiculous urge swept over Cass—the desire to go to him, to ask him to spill his guts for her, to lay together and scream with her in bare, violent agony—but another thud from downstairs pulled her back into the present reality and she wrenched her gaze away.

     Painfully, every muscle in her body wrung out like wet laundry, Cass dragged herself over the floor to where Teiddan sat next to Micah, quietly filling him in on the state of affairs. The mounting sounds of arguing from downstairs made it difficult to make out what he was saying til she got close.

     “… caut bullets caused an electrical fire.” Teiddan’s murmur wavered slightly as it reached her ears. Cass collapsed into Micah’s lap, burying her face in the thick nylon of his pants. “There’s a word-of-mouth network across the East Coast, we should be able to find somewhere to lay low and receive medical care once they’re gone.”

     “He’s gone,” Cass said into Micah’s pants. It was muffled and insensible. She managed to drag her head up a few bare centimeters so her aching whisper could be heard. “Lake. He's gone. He went back for her.”

     And with that, it all became too much for Cass. She curled into Micah's thighs desperately, her entire body wracked with violent, shuddering tremors; she swallowed down sobs in shaking, gasping breaths, forcing herself to stay silent, stay silent, burying her face in the solid, steady warmth of him.

     After a time, hands pulled her upright and Rhea’s soft, gentle lilt met her ears; Rhea’s hands feathered along her cheeks, cupped her face in her hands and wiped ineffectually at tears Cass hadn’t even known she was crying. Cass choked through her frantic blubbering, “He was your friend,” but that was all she got out before utterly breaking down and throwing herself on Rhea, who wrapped her in strong arms and pressed kiss after kiss to the stubble of her scalp.

     Time stretched and pulled like putty; it felt like hours, elongated, misshapen hours, before Cass became aware of her surroundings again. When she did, it became evident her jacket was coated in a thin veneer of snot and slime that did not come from her. She pulled back slightly and brushed her fingers along Rhea’s face; they came away wet, and Rhea made a small, low sound in her throat.

     Cass had no idea how long she’d cried for, but the lantern was dark once more and the house was silent. The only light came from the barely-visible glow limning the trapdoor to downstairs; the sounds of discord from below had ceased. No-one spoke, not even Axel.

     The trapdoor in the floor creaked and began to swing open. Cass tensed, scanning the floor wildly for her rifle, which she’d stupidly let fall in her episode of emotion, but there was no need—Olive’s head poked through the hole, followed by her hand giving a thumbs-up.

     “I got rid of them,” she said. “Unsurprisingly, I know the terms of their warrant better than they do. The cops are pissed at me, but when aren’t they?”

     “We need a doctor,” Teiddan said quietly. Olive nodded. The two began discussing something; Cass tuned out immediately.

     She didn’t care. She couldn’t care.

     July was gone.

     Everything had fallen apart.

END OF BOOK ONE